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Jean Valade's Portraits of the Faventines Family
Author(s) -
JEFFARES NEIL
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/j.1754-0208.2003.tb00270.x
Subject(s) - portrait , admiration , aristocracy (class) , sister , object (grammar) , art , art history , genealogy , history , sociology , literature , law , anthropology , politics , philosophy , political science , linguistics
Résumé The Faventines family, from Le Vigan in the Gard region of France, pursued a path very similar to that of other local financiers such as the Peyrenc de Moras family. Pierre Faventines left his native town for Paris, where he became treasurer of the estates of the house of Bourbon and later a fermier general . His second son, Jean‐Maurice Faventines de Fontenilles, followed him, becoming his assistant in 1764. The children in the family made important alliances, acquiring the houses, lands, titles and possessions of the old aristocracy; at the same time, they mixed with the money of other nouveaux riches such as Baudard de Sainte‐James, whose sister Fontenilles married. It was in the pursuit of this grand social and economic ambition that they commissioned Jean Valade to execute a large number of family portraits, works which display little of the psychological treatment favoured by Valade's rivals but which instead reflect his subjects' aspirations through their vibrant colouring. This whole world foundered with the Revolution: the family's chateaux were largely destroyed or abandoned; their furniture was scattered without trace; and only this extraordinary series of portraits by Valade survives to commemorate this magnificence which was the object of so much admiration in the eighteenth century.